


Your promise preserves my life

by ryttu3k



Category: Tomorrow Series - John Marsden, Tomorrow When The War Began - 2016, Tomorrow When the War Began - All Media Types
Genre: Courage, F/F, Religion, Robyn Is Gay, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Burn, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 09:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6798325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryttu3k/pseuds/ryttu3k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Robyn doesn't tell, and one time she does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your promise preserves my life

**Honour thy father and thy mother**

"Mum, Dad, I'm gay."

Robyn's face in the mirror is stark white. She looks clammy, her hair clinging to her forehead and cheeks, lips parted and eyes wide. Her teeth are almost chattering; she feels absurdly close to tears.

Her parents have called from the airport. They'll be home soon.

She's never said the words out loud. They hang heavily in the air, press against her tongue. Robyn sinks down on the floor in front of the mirror, hugs her legs to her chest, and whispers the words again.

"I'm gay."

She's not old-fashioned. There are gay Christians, she knows that for a fact. Love is not a sin, she knows, _knows_ that liking girls doesn't mean she loves God any less. She cannot see a loving, compassionate God disapproving of love; this is not the source of her conflict.

It's just her. Robyn Mathers, staring at a mirror and clutching her necklace so tightly it presses into her palm, too scared to come out.

"Mum, Dad, I'm gay."

Will they hate her for it? She's never talked to them about... gay things, crushes, things like that. She knows that they have a very particular life for her - school, university, charity work. Marriage, kids.

Being gay is not part of the equation.

The car is approaching, and Robyn stands, scrubs her face and presses a smile to her lips until it feels less forced, pulls her hair back neatly in a ponytail, the picture of the good daughter.

"Mum, Dad, welcome home!"

**So do not fear, for I am with you**

"Hey, Ellie?"

Ellie Linton is the bravest person Robyn knows. She's like sunshine, like a force of nature, like a summer storm. Robyn isn't one hundred percent sure she doesn't have a crush on her.

Ellie turns back to her and grins. "Hey, Rob. Going to do it?"

Robyn blinks, her lips parting in surprise. She's sure she looks a bit like a fish. "I - what?"

"Outward Bound!" She flings her hand towards the board, where a glossy poster is pinned up next to a sign-up sheet. "There's sign-ups open now. It's just the info session, but."

Blinking again, Robyn sets her courage back for a little while. "Huh, it looks fun," she says speculatively. "You been camping much?"

"Yeah, heaps. There's this cool bush area I'd kill to go to. It's called Hell." Ellie is grinning widely. "'Cause of the hermit."

Robyn is vaguely aware of the story about the hermit, and nods, a smile of her own hovering on her lips. "Isn't it like wild bushland out there? It could be fun."

Ellie has an idea, and she seizes it with no hesitation whatsoever. "Well, let's do it! After school, we go away for the Commem Day weekend. And go to Hell."

**Those whose minds are steadfast**

"Hey, Lee, what're you up to?"

Lee is a friend, and more than a friend, he's safe. He won't judge her - she thinks. He'll understand, and look at her with those dark eyes, and understand.

It would be easier, so much easier if she could just love him. It would be so much better if she could just be a good straight girl and get a boyfriend and one day marry him and have kids. Be fruitful and multiply.

It would be so easy to love Lee.

"Just messing with some music." He gives her a slow, steady smile. "What's up?"

Robyn brushes her hair back past her ears. "Oh, uh, I wanted to ask you something." She's all smiles, anxious, frantic smiles. He's calm and solid, watching her without judgement.

"Yeah?"

"I'm..." She smiles, painfully. "So, uh, Ellie asked you about the camping trip over the Commem Day weekend, right? Are you in?"

"Yeah," he says again with the same quiet smile. "I'm in."

**A friend loves at all times**

"Guys, I'm glad we're all here."

Robyn should probably not be enjoying being somewhere called Hell so much. But it's beautiful, it's so beautiful and her heart hurts from how wonderful the world around her is, how amazing God's creations are, how glad she is to be with these people, the ones she loves the most.

They share plans. Some plan on uni, some plan on travel. Lee plans to join a band. Fi does not know, the fire light flickering over her delicate features as she hunches her shoulders, and Robyn speaks of helping those that need it most.

"I want to get into social work. Maybe help homeless kids."

She's read the stats. She knows how so many of the kids out there are gay or bi or trans, who have been kicked out of their homes and have nowhere else to turn to. She knows about the organisations that turn gay kids away; she vows not to become one of them.

She'll help save them all.

**And a brother is born for a time of adversity**

"Lee?"

They're at war, and she's so scared.

"Hey, Rob."

They're at war, and she needs to save them all.

"Hey. How's the pain?"

They're at war, and she needs to save Lee, save herself. Save her friends. Save Wirrawee.

"Bit better, thanks. Codeine's good stuff."

They're at war and holed up in Lee's parent's restaurant, hoping (Lee) and praying (Robyn) that the soldiers don't find them. They've secured themselves the best they can, but it's a tenuous sort of safety, the kind that could be shattered any moment down the barrel of a gun.

"Are you scared?"

"Yeah. God, yeah, of course." He laughs, tilts his head back. "I don't know where my Mum and Dad are, my hometown has been invaded, and I've been shot in the goddamn leg." Robyn winces. "Ah - sorry."

She waves a hand, smiling painfully.

Have they been damned? Or is this a test to prove their strength, to prove their faith?

She hasn't been honest. Not with anyone, not even with herself.

She thinks of Hell, of birds, of her friends. She thinks of sparklers and ziplines, of morning dew and fire light painting Fi's smile and hair golden.

"We'll get back," she says softly, and it's a promise. "We'll get back."

**Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong**

"Hey."

Fi braids her hair with mechanical precision, her hands moving swiftly and smoothly. She glances up and smiles, and there's radiance, goodness in there despite all the bad around them.

Lee has been shot. Corrie is now homeless. The war rages on. Fi looks up at her and smiles. "Hey."

"Am I interrupting?"

"No way." Fi pats the log next to her and Robyn sits, studies her plaits, the contours of her face.

Her chest hurts.

"You're really good at that."

"I love it. It's my way of relaxing." Fi smiles. "I'll do yours."

Robyn thinks for a moment of Fi's hands in her hair and her chest turns over a little. "Really?"

"Yeah!"

She's glad she's not facing Fi. Robyn's face is definitely red right now.

"Haven't got a clue what my hair looks like right now," Fi says with a chuckle as she removes Robyn's hair tie. "I usually do this in front of a mirror."

She can picture Fi, Fi in happiness and peace, her eyes soft and free from fear, facing her reflection and not flinching away.

"I try to stay away from mirrors as much as possible," she says with a self-deprecating laugh, and Fi's hands pause for a moment.

"Why? You're gorgeous!"

_Oh my God, I'm so gay._

"Missionary's daughter cannot be too vain," she says with forced levity, and never mind the questions she asks of herself every day in front of her reflection.

Fi's delicate hands start to braid. "Wow, your parents are missionaries?" she asks curiously, and she sounds genuinely fascinated - genuinely interested in her parents, in her life. Robyn feels herself flush.

"Work in war zones, protecting people..." She tilts her head a little. "Which is deeply ironic. Here I am, their only child, in the middle of a war - and nowhere to be seen."

She needs to be brave. Brave like her parents, brave like Ellie, brave like Fi flying down the zipline.

Because it's a war, and who knows what the next day will bring?

"I'd hate my parents to leave me," Fi says softly, and for a moment, Robyn wonders if maybe Fi thinks _she_ is brave. "Oh - I'm sorry, that's not very sensitive."

She shrugs. "They've done it since I was a little kid. I'm used to not relying on them."

It's a war, and she needs to rely on God, and on her friends, and herself. She needs to be brave.

"I'm beginning to realise I've always taken mine a bit for granted," Fi says, and Robyn can picture her expression, the sad, sweet smile on her lips. She huffs a laugh. "Looking good is pretty dumb when you think about what's happening to us."

Fi is soft and gentle and kind. What will the war do to her? What will the war do to any of them?

Robyn cracks a joke, a silly, dumb joke about killing for a soapy bath, and her hands tighten as she thinks about soldiers in houses that she could, quite literally, kill to have a bath, and she wants to curse herself out even as Fi manages a laugh, tugs very gently on the braid she's making.

"When we get out of here," Fi says suddenly, "I'll take you to my Mum's favourite salon. Mani-pedi for both of us."

Robyn laughs, shaken out of her fear by sheer surprise. "What's that, a drink?" she asks, and the thoughts turn over in her head; _Fi believes we will make it, Fi believes we will stay friends, Fi is asking me out for a drink._

"Manicure-pedicure." Fi's voice is casual, correcting her gently.

Robyn smiles, bites back the thought of, _stupid, stupid, stupid, don't make assumptions, why would she be interested, why would you think that._

"Sounds like fun. If we..." If they have any sort of future, if they ever reach a point where they can go out for manicures and drinks. "...ever get out of here."

"We will."

They will, they will and she has to believe that there will be a day when they will be free, when she can be who she wants to be, do what she wants to do. She has to hope, she has to pray. She has to believe.

She has to have faith.

She can walk away, now. She can leave Fi's side and go back to being Robyn the missionary's daughter, Robyn the good daughter, Robyn the girl on the run. Robyn the coward.

"Hey," she says, and Fi looks up, curious and unguarded. "When we get out of here..."

Fi smiles, a fractional curve of her lips, at the 'when', not the 'if'. "Yeah?"

It's a war. They might die any day. She doesn't want to be Robyn the coward any more.

She smiles, and says, "You can take me out for a drink too," before she can lose her nerve, and turns, hurries away.

"Robyn!" Fi calls, and she stops as if pulled by a tether to her voice, hand straying to her new plait.

"Yeah?"

Fi walks up behind her, her pace measured, even, and reaches for Robyn's hand, and oh God, her hand is so warm, so soft. "First shout is mine," she says, and smiles.


End file.
